Practice and Reflection

1.       What was easy for me in planning the lesson? Why? Choosing the actual lesson, reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, was pretty easy for me to decide as it is one of my son’s favorite books and it is also such a well-known story. It offers a chance to teach children about the days of the week, numbers, and even to take a look at the life cycles of a caterpillar. Writing about the standards that were going to be covered by the lesson plan were easy too, because all of those were based on research of what the standards in my state are. I was able to quickly pinpoint the areas that are expected to learn for this age group that could and would be incorporated.

2.       What components were difficult for me to complete when planning the lesson? Why? Practice and checking for understanding was a bit more difficult for me because I don’t think I was able to come up with any creative ways to “test” for knowledge gain without just simply asking questions. I feel that I could have done more to involve parents into the practice and checking for understanding by sending home a simple activity sheet that parents can  go over with their children to keep the fun going.

3.       What do I want to improve on when creating lesson plans? I want to improve on time management. I need better time management when creating a lesson plan as well as managing the time it would take each day to do the activities that are in the lesson plan. I also think I could benefit greatly by working on more creative ways to put into practice things that have been learned from the activities. If I were to do it again, I would also figure out a way to have families more involved with the activities or the plan itself so they can continue with the fun and learning at home.

4.       How will this assignment help me in my future role? Simply, just knowing the basic components of creating a lesson plan is extremely beneficial. Knowing that there is basically a list of expectations for the age group being taught, you can base your plan on that by thinking of a creative way to teach it.

Evaluation of Peer’s Lesson Plan: Edith Altizer Strengths & Areas of Reflection: I am excited that this lesson plan is based around reading, because I’ve learned that reading aloud to children is probably the best way to help them to acquire language and language skills. I do not know what age group this lesson plan is for, however. I feel there could have been a more creative way to go about practice and checking for understanding. The closing was quite vague, but all in all I think it was a good “base” plan that a teacher could use and possibly add to for almost any type of lesson plan or activity.

Evaluation of Peer’s Lesson Plan: Andra Allen Strengths and Areas of Reflection: A major strength is that her lesson plan clearly states that it is to help children acquire a second language. I think that by having her lesson plan not be specific (i.e. which books to use) leaves a lot of room for creativity and being able to switch things up a bit to meet the needs of other activities and lesson.

Evaluation of Peer’s Lesson Plan: Quicia Hoke Strengths Areas of Reflection: Right off I noticed the mention of adding sensory play into the lesson plan. Playing is very important for learning and not many other lesson plans mentioned “playing” of any kind too much, mine included. I had crafts and something that can be ongoing after the lesson has finished. The only problem I see with this lesson is that some parents may be uncomfortable with their sons playing with dolls. (I personally do not think anything would be wrong with my son playing with dolls, but I know parents who would.) I really enjoyed that she talked about how she would change things around for children with special needs and that she was aware of possible time changes because not all children are the same.

Current Issues Critical Thinking

Week 3 Journal
Jennifer Strope
September 16, 2013

I could not in good conscience just write on one small snippet of information from a very long document. I’m not going to say I read every last word but I skimmed over the general stuff, read deeply into the more specific stuff and paused especially at the author(s) comparisons between their lives as Digital Immigrants and those of Digital Natives (the children born into immersive technology). My first thought on the selected statement from the document is “Yes, Right on!” Children are learning differently, expressing themselves in ways that confound adults and push the boundaries of what we expect and assume. My second thought though is; has not every generation in its own way been fundamentally different than the generation before them? I submit that if we were convinced that we were only looking at a recent radically fundamental change in this new generation that we would be blind to the truth. Where did this immersive technology that they were born into come from? My husband was born while the house he grew up in was being built. He did not build it though his father did. The previous generation creates the world the new generation is born into. So this fundamentally different way of thinking already existed BEFORE the generation of digital natives ever rose up. I think what we are seeing is what has been going on since the dawn of time. In the cycle of intellectual advancement we begin with the current established generation who is pretty content with how things are. From that generation comes the few that fundamentally think differently, your Thomas Edison’s, your Nikola Tesla’s, your Albert Einstein’s, and your Steven Jobs. As a side note Apple’s newest slogan is simply Think Different. The point is it is from these pioneers that things like electricity becomes commonplace, then commonplace in our homes till it is just something to the new generation that was always there. Every fundamentally different change eventually becomes part of normalcy for the next generation. I don’t think we are looking at anything all that spectacular or that has not or will not happen again. Out of this digital natives mark my words will come a tiny group of pioneers into the next fundamentally different way of thinking for the generation that follows them.

Now that I have gone way overboard on the first question, let’s try and get through the remaining ones. I have to believe that every generation learns differently than the past one; the advances in medicine, science, and technology are testaments to those differences. But the ground work for those differences as I mentioned are laid by the pioneers who came from the previous generation. As for how this affects my future role as an educator and what implications it will have, I don’t think it will have that drastic an effect as one would think. I say that because I feel that by nature of me wanting to be a better teacher I am going to use the technology that I have become comfortable with, bringing that into my teaching, allowing students to absorb my experiences and enjoyment I already get from using technology in my daily life.  I think what the great educators of the past present and future all have in common is the balance between sharing honestly with the next generation what they do know, and being open and receptive to having what they do know challenged and even overthrown without taking it personally. Without this balance we would still believe the world is flat, have no idea that microscopic things called germs make people sick, have no nuclear energy, the list is endless. So the only implication for me would be letting my pride in what I know blind me or prevent me from getting a glimpse of the future.

Rapid Fire Reaction - Wk1Dq1

Jennifer Strope
Week 1 Journal
ECE 315: Language Development in Young Children

Today’s journal prompt reminded me of myspace “QUIZZES” I used to like to fill out years and years ago, so I thought it would be fun to approach it in that manner and pretend I’m 19 again.

Think about your day today.

• How did you communicate? Today I spent most of my day communicating with spoken words while speaking one-on-one in person with people. Today is Labor Day so we had a family meal with my in-laws including my brother-in-law Kirk and his fiancé Elle, a good friend of the family Karol and her 2 boys. I also communicated with my son by giving him high fives, hugs, and kisses. Sometimes it’s not about what you say. I’ve posted pictures from our day onto Instagram, too. I love communicating with photos. Right now I am communicating in this journal by typing, though I don’t have an audience while I’m typing it, I will, eventually. I am also “chatting” online with Elle about our love for music. She’s a fan of 80s, while I’m a 90’s girl at heart. I also shared a music video on Facebook, along with status updates throughout the day. I live far away from my family and most of my friends, so I use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to communicate.

• Is this different than how you communicated 10 years ago? I communicated pretty much the same way 10 years ago, however, I spent much more time face-to-face with my family and friends. And I was on Myspace rather than Facebook. I had only been a high school graduate for about a year, which I took off from school. I spent a lot of time on my cellphone and landline phone when I wasn’t face-to-face.

• How about 20 years ago? 20 years ago I was almost 9 years old.  You could not have paid me money to get off of the phone, now you can’t pay me to get on one! I did not even know what the internet was, and I communicated by playing with other kids. I lived next door to my cousin and bff Bev then, and we were inseparable. We wrote a lot of notes at that age, too. That is something I never do now. I kind of miss writing letters on paper.

• Our language and our means of communication have changed over time. I am happy that it’s so easy to communicate through texts, internet, video chat etc because my family isn’t here with me. I think it’s interesting how new words have actually been acquired. When I was younger I knew all the cool slang. Now, I read something online or hear a kid talking I am lost as to what they mean. It makes me feel old.

• Have our rules and theories also changed?  I’ve noticed that there are a lot more “bad” words being said on TV and in movies now. I also have noticed that the media is more “okay” with communicating sexual things on tv too. Perfect example the “performance” Miley Cyrus gave at the VMAs last week. I don’t ever see that being allowed on TV when I was 9 years old. I still have nightmares.

• What about our interactions and expectations? Our interactions have become more impersonal, I think. Even when email became a more common thing, we wrote out longer emails. Then IMs came along and then text messages, and our messages just get shorter and a lot less personal. Our expectations are almost the same. We don’t want long and drawn out responses, and we want responses almost instantly. If we don’t get immediate responses we start to think something is wrong. Everything is so face paced now.
• How about the effectiveness of our communication? I think we are able to convey messages and ideas much more quickly now than we could before. Different cultures and languages are more able to understand due to such quick ways of communicating and translating. For example, whenever any type of terror occurs around the world, there are always people able to communicate and translate so that everyone is able to read and react. On the other hand, the emotional effectiveness of communication has gone down. For instance, sarcasm is very difficult to pick out in an electronic message unless you know that person well and their mannerisms, however, it can be very easy to pick out when face to face or even on the phone.

• How do you think the new forms of language and abundance of diverse communication methods will affect our children and youth? Our children, due to all this interconnection of internet and news, etc., are going to be much more globally aware. However, we may witness a generation of sensory overload, which may cause them to be unable to care. Does that make sense? If you see all the bad in the world, how can you choose what bad to care most about? They will be soaking up a lot of information, but will they have time to really apply it?

• What is the impact of this new communication on the “old” forms of communication? Like I said before, I miss handwriting letters. I felt it took a lot of time, especially when I learned how to type so quickly, but now I really miss it. Typing out a Facebook comment on a person’s page isn’t the same as taking the time (and wasting pages of paper to get your handwriting perfect) to form a letter. Another difference is how businesses are now letting people go more “green” by paying bills online electronically. There is a lot less mail going out now.